


The Heavy Machinery of the Heart

by galfridian



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2600018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galfridian/pseuds/galfridian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Finn is the first person to choose her, and in the end, what she fears is that he'll be the last.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heavy Machinery of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> quentanilien prompted: _Raven/Wick with Wick making Raven's crutches for her, pretty please! And sassing each other, because obviously._ In light of the clip released today, I tweaked the prompt a little.

Raven wakes to whispers. A few feet from her bed, Finn and Abby stand in a half-circle with a guard she doesn't recognize. Someone has dimmed the lights in medical, throwing a mess of shadows around them. Finn's shoulders are tense, and the guard keeps glancing over his shoulder, but it's Abby's face that tells the story. In this light, she looks just like Clarke. Battle ready.

"You're leaving," Raven says to Finn, when he returns to her side.

"I'm going to find our people, Raven," he whispers, smoothing her hair. The gesture is familiar, but the comfort of it is a lie. Her stomach clenches.

"You're going to find Clarke."

He doesn't deny it. "I'm sorry," he says.

She turns her head, leans away from his touch. "Don't be."

 

Raven remembers starvation, the feeling of an empty gut.

The first time Finn fed her, Raven's mother looked so relieved when she found out. So unburdened.

 

So it isn't Finn she's afraid to lose, really, but _someone_. The problem is, Finn has always been her someone. Her only someone.

He's the first person to choose her, and in the end, what she fears is that he'll be the last.

 

Sometimes, Abby sits with her. Raven doesn't ask about the scars just visible under the hemline of her shirt. Abby returns the favor by keeping questions about Raven's progress medical.

Mostly, they talk about Clarke. Raven hasn't spent much time with her, but she knows she's strong, stubborn like her mother, and so she gives her all her stories. She tells Abby all the headstrong, reckless things Clarke Griffin has done and survived, and Raven watches her hope grow.

"Thank you," Abby says every time, brushing hair from Raven's eyes or squeezing her hand. 

It's this glimpse of motherly affection that haunts her.

 

A week or so passes. Abby starts to wear the Chancellor pin, squares her shoulders, and raises hell. To be honest, Raven's a little proud.

But it's lonelier.

Then one afternoon, she's taking a radio apart – busy work, really – when Mecha Station comes to her. It's a motley collection of mechanics and engineers, mostly those without families. It's a little awkward, given the unspoken – and okay, sometimes spoken – rivalry between the two fields, but it's good.

A couple of the mechanics start trying to gauge her height, promising a pair of crutches. 

One of the engineers, Wick, just laughs. "Crutches? We can do better than that."

She rolls her eyes, joins in the mechanics' debate about the best pieces to use for the crutches, and tries not to grin at the engineers crowding around Wick with their ideas.

 

The mechanics deliver on their promise: a few days later, she's fitted with a pair of crutches, and she starts hobbling around Camp Jaha.

It's slow at first, and Abby doesn't like her wandering too far from medical, but just moving on her own feels so good.

Wick likes to trail her, commenting on her speed or the slight height difference in the crutches or the way she grimaces when her arms get tired. 

"All you have to do is ask," he says one evening. At Abby's insistence, she's returned to medical. Tomorrow, she'll find a place with the other Mecha Station leftovers, but tonight, she's having her first decent meal in weeks. "We have some great designs."

"I've seen your designs before, Wick. I think I'll stuck to the crutches."

He laughs, but takes a seat on a bed near hers. "You are coming back to work, right? Before Finn took off, he told us a few stories about the things you've done here."

"Can't just sit here feeling miserable, can I?"

"No," he agrees. "You can't."

 

"This is a mess, Wick. None of this makes any sense." They're sitting at his workstation, going over designs for a transmitter.

"What? It makes perfect sense. Look." He turns the tablet in her hands so that it's sideways. "This piece fits here, and then–"

"Have you ever built _anything_? Because this really suggests that you haven't."

"Maybe you just lack vision, Reyes."

"No, I don't think that's it."

But she starts pulling the pieces in his design from the shelves, laying them out according to his schematics.

They work in silence, and when she hits a wall, he helps her build. In the end, he's mostly right – the design works – and he proves surprisingly adept at the mechanical part of his job. "Look at you," she says, watching him fit two pieces together, "you could almost be useful."

He grins.

 

The radios don't work. She's tried to mimic the design she used at the dropship, but for some reason, the radios won't communicate with each other.

Instead, they just emit a high-pitched beep, mocking her. 

She throws one across the room, relishing the sound of it smashing against the ground and the silence as both radios go quiet.

"Well," Wick says from behind her. "I don't think that solved it."

"Shut up."

"Why don't you take a break? Eat something?"

Raven sighs. "If you don't have any ideas, just leave."

"You know, Reyes, you don't have to be the best at everything. You can ask for help."

 

At dinner, she finds him at one of the smaller fires, eating alone. Standing behind him, she notes that he's watching Finn with Clarke.

"Is this why you're unhappy these days?" he asks.

"I'm always unhappy, Wick," Raven tells him, taking the seat next to him.

"That's not true. You're happy when we – when you're working."

"Yeah," she says, "but it's all I have. It's always been something I could be better at. People noticed me." She glances at Finn. "For a while, I had him, too. He noticed. But now – now, it's just work."

"So what you're saying," Wick says, turning his body towards hers and away from Clarke and Finn, "is that I should stick around. Make sure you have plenty of work."

"Something like that," Raven agrees, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, I will." He turns back toward the fire. The sun is disappearing behind Alpha Station. "Idiot," he says, nodding toward Finn.

"No," Raven says, "That's the thing. Clarke isn't – she's incredible. Like her mom."

"Maybe, but you are, too." He shrugs. "Idiot."

She grins.

 

Later, after the fires have burned out, they walk back to their tents together. They're greeted by mechanics and engineers as they go, people playing games or settling in for the night. It's strange, this feeling of fitting into something again. But it's good. Better than Finn, because with this group – her people – Raven's heart is finding bigger ways to love.

"Reyes," Wick says, as he's about to step into his tent.

"Yeah?"

His fingers brush against her left hand. "You aren't alone." 


End file.
